Tag: github

Given the emphasis that Columbus coach Gregg Berhalter places on possession and passing, it probably isn’t a surprise that I’ve started to focus on those statistical categories. Throughout the 2016 season, as troublesome results started to accumulate, I’ve tried to understand the Columbus approach to possession and passing within the context of other teams in MLS.

Each observation is a single team’s performance in a single game – so with 20 teams each playing 34 games, there are 680 rows available. Fields include:

Team

Opponent

Possession %

Passes

Pass completion %

Passes in specific areas of the field (attacking half, final third, and crossses)

Pass completion % in those areas

Shots

Shots on target

Goals

Hopefully the work to assemble this data proves useful to someone. I’ve been using this data for many of the plots that I’ve shared on Twitter this season, and now that Columbus is done for the year I’ve been exploring it in more detail.

I hope to be able to share what I’ve found over the coming weeks, but for now I mostly just want to see whether anyone is interested in the data itself.